2018 Overview and Favorites

(List of all the books I read in 2018 is here; my 2018 overview page on Goodreads is here)

In 2018, I made a sort of anti-goal for number of books read: I wanted to read less than 100 books in a bid to force myself to choose slower, more difficult reads rather than pick books that I could gobble up quickly to make a certain quota. I met this goal and ended the year with 92 books.*

It's always hard to pick out the favorites from the past year; I usually read a good mix of books in terms of genre. That said, here are the books that stood out to me (along with a one-sentence overview) given in no particular order. Links are to the original blog post the book appeared in.

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin

A uniquely quiet, exploratory, and deep fantasy-tinged Sci-Fi novel.

The Art of Asking - Amanda Palmer

Amanda's writing style is very relatable, even though her experiences and way of viewing the world are very different than mine.

Stories of Your Life and Others [Short Stories] - Ted Chiang

I read a lot of short story collections this year (twelve, to be precise), but this worthy mix of Sci-Fi was my favorite.

Mort - Terry Pratchett
The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett

These two Discworld novels (both starting points in different story lines) each are characteristic in their blend of humor and serious subjects (most notably, death).

In the Heart of the Sea - Nathaniel Philbrick
The Butchering Art - Lindsey Fitzharris

These two historical books are each fascinating in their treatment of the subjects (respectively, the sinking of a 19th-century whaleship and a history of the "father of modern surgery"), well-researched, and just a little gruesome.

Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik

This novel offers an almost-perfect balance of realism and fantasy.

Kindred - Olivia Butler

This book - the first I've read of Butler's - is directly gripping and quietly devastating.

Wind, Sand, and Stars - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A collection of personal musings on adventure that's poignant, philosophical, and piercingly poetic.


Bonus Runners-up (books that don't have quite as widespread appeal, but that I appreciated and stood out in some way nonetheless):

A Very Fine House - Barbara Cofer Stoefen
This personal family story ends perhaps a little too neatly, and I found myself annoyed with the author (the somewhat naive and controlling mother of a meth-addicted daughter) at times. But I appreciated this book since there aren't a lot like it out there. And Stoefen smooths out enough things (cursing and situations) in the story to make it palatable enough for most readers.

A Clergyman's Daughter - George Orwell
Kind of depressing, but hauntingly relevant, sparse, and sharply realistic of the time.

My Lady's Choosing - Kitty Curran & Larissa Zageris
This hilarious and spoofy Regency-era choose-your-own adventure was a lot of fun to read together with my husband. Is it top-notch writing and of great literary quality? No. But is it something I got a lot of enjoyment out of? Hell yeah.

Treason - Orson Scott Card
This echos-of-Dune, fantasy-tinged early novel of Card's is weird and imperfect, but still readable and interesting enough that I find myself including it in this post.

And lastly, I'd feel remiss in not giving at least an honorable mention to these two well-researched, fact-packed, history-heavy, and yet very accessible overviews:
A History of Food in 100 Recipes - William Sitwell
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England - Ian Mortimer

(*91 according to Goodreads, but I'm counting the Pat and Pat of Silver Bush combo that I got on Kindle as two separate books rather than one volume.)

December 2018 Reads

Well, it's time for the final post for 2018! I rounded out the year with more fiction choices - some of which I waited for months to get from the library - as well as a couple of history/biography choices and a self-help option.

Less - Andrew Sean Greer (2017)
From: Local Library (hold list)
"... as an areligious WASP, he had no idea what to do about death. Two thousand years of flaming Viking boats and Celtic rites and Irish wakes and Puritan worship and Unitarian hymns, and he was still left with nothing."

This novel was an unexpected a jumble of juxtapositions for me. It's funny and poignant; it's wry and rambling; it's light and deep. Following the stumbling-but-earnest travels of an anxiously-aging writer isn't the type of journey I usually find myself taking, but despite its uniqueness (to me, at any rate), this book seems, if anything, universally accessible.

Uncommon Type [Short Stories] - Tom Hanks (2017)
From: Little Free Library
"In New York City, real estate parlors took your money and lied to you, drug addicts relieved themselves in plain sight, and the Public Library was closed on Mondays."

I have to say that nothing really wowed me in this short story collection. The stories are generally along a similar tone and vein (although a couple veer into the Sci-Fi direction and a few take a historical track, which is a plus for me). I don't think that Hanks is a bad writer. It's just that as a whole, this collection seemed fairly bland and a bit unfinished. It wasn't really for me.

Related Reads:
Stone Mattress (Atwood)
The Overneath (Beagle)

Mirror Mirror - Gregory Maguire (2003)
From: Little Free Library
"What child does not feel itself perched at the center of creation? Before catechisms can instill a proper humility, small children know the truth that their own existence has caused the world to bloom into being."

It's fairly obvious from the title that this is another retelling of the Snow White story. What was unexpected to me was that Maguire goes for a fantasy-infused but reality-based retelling that's tinged with historical fiction; the story integrates actual characters (namely, members of the Borgia family) from 16th-century Italy. It's an interesting take, overall, despite some potential loose ends, and I generally preferred it over the more widely-known Wicked.

Related Reads:
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (Maguire)
The Sleeper and the Spindle and Smoke & Mirrors ["Snow, Glass, Apples"] (Gaiman)

Children of Hoarders - Fugen Neziroglu & Katharine Donnelly (2013)
From: Amazon
"The goal of engaging in a dialogue with a parent who hoards is not necessarily to bring about change, but rather to begin the process of healing from the emotional impact that your parent's behavior has had on you."

Quick note: The subject of this book isn't directly applicable to me, but I read this together with my husband, who is a child of a hoarder.

To be brief, I'd categorize this book as "somewhat helpful." The chapters are set up with clear subjects designed to be immediately useful (ranging from "Managing Your Reactions and Coping With Your Emotions" to "Inheriting the Mess"), there are examples and tips given for various situations, and there are lots of at-home mindfulness-type exercises included for the reader to work on. The authors put forth a good bit of starting point and surface-level information in each chapter without delving too deeply into any one thing. But honestly, that's fitting with the point of this book, which is to help the reader move forward and processes things rather than try to completely understand and "fix" things that are, frankly, often unfathomable and unfixable.

With clear statements, the authors guide the reader to actually sit down, face the past and present, and think things through directly. Thus, this book is geared more for someone who is just starting out on their journey of confronting the situation and their feelings rather than for someone who's been making progress with processing things for years. I'll also note that the authors generally maintain a sympathetic view towards all parties involved, which may be a difficult pill for some to swallow.

All in all, I'd recommend this as a starting point for children of hoarders who are just beginning the process of trying to face or deal with things, with the understanding that the mindfulness and CBT-based tactics that are emphasized may not be for everyone (and is no substitute for actual therapy, if needed).

Related Reads:
The Secret Lives of Hoarders (Paxton)
Coming Clean (Miller)
Dirty Secret (Sholl)

Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages - Phyllis Rose (1983)
From: Borrowed from a friend
"None behave with a greater appearance of guilt than people who are convinced of their own virtue."

This was an interesting mix of stories about various authors (including Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and John Stuart Mill) and their spouses, focused mostly on their unhappy marriages. It explores the concepts and laws surrounding divorce during the 18th-century. I felt the author inserted a lot of personal opinion into the stories, but I didn't necessarily mind this; it's just helpful to know that this book sometimes reads more like an opinionated essay rather than a research-heavy book that's strictly based on fact.

Related Reads:
Half a Century (Swisshelm)

Wind, Sand, and Stars - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1939)
From: Christmas present
"Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal or a window opening on something other than itself."

The Little Prince is a childhood favorite of mine, so it was almost a given that I'd enjoy the author's autobiographical book. The writing (translated from French) is poetic, repetitious, haunting, beautiful - and very human. De Saint-Exupery details some of his experiences flying small airplanes on mail routes in South America and Africa, his visions experienced when isolated (and sometimes stranded in) the deserts, and his observance of the Spanish Civil War as a journalist.

There's a fair amount of personal musings and philosophy interwoven throughout the book. I don't agree with all of his conclusions and thought processes; there are a few outdated and racist attitudes that crop up. But all in all, this is a lovely, gripping, and worthwhile read.

Related Reads:
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T. E. Lawrence)
Going Solo (Dahl)
Homage to Catalonia (Orwell)
My Family and Other Animals (Durrell)

Pachinko - Min Jin Lee (2017)
From: Local Library (after many months on the hold list)
"-There could only be a few winners and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones. How could you get angry at the ones who wanted to be in the game?
... Pachinko was a foolish game, but life was not."

Despite being nearly 500 pages long, this novel is immensely readable - I finished it in the space of two days. It's focused on one family over a time period of a century (1880s-1980s), tracing them from humble roots in Korea to eventual migration to Japan and detailing the often racism-based difficulties they experience there. The reader gets an enlightening and rare window into the culture and history, and the story manages to stay interesting without getting too heavy.

My big caveat is that I found that I never really connected well with the characters. The story centers on the one family, but tends to make large jumps forward (sometimes rather abruptly) in time and change focus to different family members, so it's hard to form attachments to specific characters.

Somewhat of a spoiler/content note: there are several suicides that occur throughout the book.

Related Reads:
The Valley of Amazement (Tan)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Golden)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez)